Posts by Angus Shaw

In Harare, Zimbabwe In so-often discredited history, it could be said the French did it better. For the most part they didn’t send permanent settlers to far flung territories they claimed  for their flag – unlike others in Europe. With notable exceptions they didn’t stay on after being posted out as functionaries, civil servants and…

Sock it to ’em!  Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather has been in the headlines again. He has apparently spent US 7 million in the Gucci shop in Joburg and was escorted out by uniformed security guards with assault rifles.   Then he flew off to have dinner with his girlfriend in St Tropez in the south of  France.…

Harare, Zimbabwe. Happy to be home in Africa, says ‘ Roots syndrome’ Mayweather Floyd Mayweather has been and gone and the state media has made a meal of it. The millionaire US boxer hosted a private dinner and the big brass invited were impressed by his agility of mind in business matters and his intellect,…

Think of bikers. Do you think of Hell’s Angels? Down here in Zimbabwe we have a different sort of biker. Big and powerful motorbikes? Yes. Skull and crossbones logos and regalia? Yes. Misnamed, mean-minded outlaw gangs with equally poisonous groupies and hangers-on? No. Our bikers are certainly not wimps though. It’s an addiction and a…

In these parts we have been through capitalism, Marxist-Leninist communism, humanism, socialism, corrupt elitism – and now we’ve got a new one: ‘miserablism.’ It is suffered by the majority of the people who neither have the will nor the energy to defeat it after being downtrodden for so long. Elections are around the corner but…

Keen Russia watchers are confused. What really went on with Wagner?  Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, son of a Vladimir, has had to admit paying Yevgeny Victorovich Prigozhin, son of a Victor, for doing dirty tricks for the Russian state all along.  The dreadful Alexander Grigoryvich Lukashenko, son of a Grigory, claims to have given the mercenary…

Much ado about Rusty Markham lately. The honourable opposition member of parliament stormed out of the bulding during heated debate, evidently saying he was sick and tired of constant racism, prejudice and carping against him. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. It happens all the time here. As the government media had it,…

“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.” The words of wily old Soviet dictator Nikita Krushchev, who once took the world to within an inch of nuclear war, knew what he was talking about. Down here in a distant world,  a wasteland, beautiful and…

Everyone has heard the tale of the two cows. In socialism, you have two cows, and you give one to your neighbour. In communism, you have two cows, the government takes both and gives you milk. In fascism, you have two cows, the government takes both and sells you the milk. In Nazism, you have…